Labor & Workplace Studies 188-3 
                                     and Chicano Studies 191-5 
                                     Applied Research Methods in the LA 
                                     Labor Community 
                                     Winter Quarter 2014 
          Principles of Survey 
                      Methodology 
            WINTER  2014, UCLA 
                          Outline 
     • What is a survey? 
     • What is survey methodology? 
     • Survey design 
     • Survey quality 
     • Ethical issues in using survey methodology 
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                  What is a survey? 
     • A systematic method for gathering 
       information from (a sample of) individuals for 
       the purposes of describing the attributes of 
       the larger population of which the 
       individuals are members. 
     • The attributes attempt to describe basic 
       characteristics or experiences of large and 
       small populations in our world. 
                                           (Enanoria, 2005) 
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                 Features of a survey 
     • Information is gathered by asking people 
       questions 
     • Information is collected either by having 
       interviewers ask questions and record 
       answers or by having people read or hear 
       questions and record their answers 
     • Information is collected from only a subset of 
       the population to be described (a sample) 
       rather than from all members 
                                             (Groves, et al., 2009) 
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